


Melt

by theStarfly



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: (with magic), Fluff, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, New Relationship, Snowball Fight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-03
Updated: 2017-01-03
Packaged: 2018-09-14 11:13:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9179080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theStarfly/pseuds/theStarfly
Summary: Credence is unsurprisingly hesitant about snow.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JuliaBaggins](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JuliaBaggins/gifts).



> I hope this works for you, JuliaBaggins! I've not tried to write Graves before, so I hope I did him justice.

Snow, to Credence Barebone, had never been anything but a massive inconvenience at best, and a source of deadly cold at worst. Growing up poor, even after Ma had adopted him from his deadbeat father and no mother to be found, he had learned to dread the tell-tale blank gray of the sky and the crisp crunch of the smell of wind in his nostrils. Snow was a hardship, something to buckle down, burrow under, and endure, not a celebration. Any poor orphan, adopted or not, knew that to be fact.

  
As such, when Percy attempted to drag him from the cabin where they were hiding away for a time from the proceedings of MACUSA, he dug in his socked heels and refused to budge farther than the man was able to slide them across the sleek wood flooring. Their relationship may have been fairly new— both had been found at approximately the same time only six months before— but it wasn’t new enough that Credence wasn’t scared of what impression he might make if he spoke his mind freely.

  
Quickly, he had learned that the man he had spoken to (the man he had, admittedly, fallen in love with far too quickly, even if Percival did deserve it), was not the same Mr. Graves whose words he’d clung to as their new relationship had gone remarkably bad just as quickly.

  
And just as quickly as all that, he had learned as the were shuttled between missing persons and we-didn’t-realize-they-were-alive-let-alone-missing-persons that the real Percival Graves he had met that first day would never have put a condition on his acceptance into the wizarding community. The real Percival thought highly of the ability of those considered squibs to persevere in the face of hardship, would have taught him everything he knew if he had been one, rather than dumping him in a decaying house. The real Percival would never have even considered hitting him. He had learned that the Graves he had loved that first day had never changed, only been ripped from him. And he was _mad_.

  
But nevertheless, their trust re-established, he wasn’t about to follow the man out to the death-blanket of white, no matter the light stain of pink in the man’s cheeks from chopping them wood in the cold, or the quirk of his lips as he put on his best fatherly look and intoned that _a young man such as himself should not be deprived of the glory of a wizarding snow fight_. For training purposes, of course.

  
Credence fixed his gaze on the ground by Percy’s foot, and refused to give in or look up, even as Percival’s fingers gently massaged his shoulders, beckoning him forward, lest he be subjected to the (newly) patented _dad face_  the office had groaningly accepted along with the old patented _fatherly disappointment_  the man had always exuded.

  
It seemed that Mr. Grave’s sense of humor had mellowed somewhat in captivity. Whispers fluttered around HQ when they thought no one was listening, though Credence was always listening, and he was willing to bet that Percival had never stopped listening, even while contained in the small, silver pocket watch Grindelwald had stolen and kept on his person at all times while wearing the man’s face.

  
Percival had, after all, needed surprisingly little catching up on the goings-on after they had found him in Newt’s niffler’s stash of stolen treasures.

  
However, having heard all that Credence had confessed to the man wearing his face, Percival still stood by him, and still wanted too take him outside to enjoy this “snow fight” concept. Credence continued staring at the most interesting speck of dust by Percival’s foot as though it were the most interesting speck of dust he’d ever encountered, as he fought his need to look up at Percival and smile, Percy’s dad-look boring into the side of his head with alarming accuracy… he sighed. He really did trust the man, after all.

  
Steeling himself, he glanced up straight into intense eyes, Percival’s hands a comforting weight on his shoulders (he had been sweet about avoiding Credence’s face after the first time, memories too strong yet to just push aside, and Credence appreciated it more than the man would probably ever know.)

  
“Credence.” Credence sighed again and tilted his face gently against his own shoulder, only just making brushing contact with one of Percival’s fingers where they stroked gentle circles into his sleeve. “Credence,” the man breathed, softer in _tone_  at the touch, but no less determined. “Let me share this with you, please?”

  
It was the please that did it, the please breathed out quietly against his lips from a man so predisposed to orders and firm-yet-persuasive suggestions and occasional exasperated threats to misbehaving underlings. A please that embodied everything he was trying to make up for, even the things that had not been _him_.  
Credence *melted*, and remained gooey inside as he pressed together their lips in a chaste promise that yes, just this once, he would try to enjoy the cold, and no, he wouldn’t complain. For his Percival, _his_  Mr. Graves, a memory for them to finally share properly.

Later, as they melted together in happy misery in front of the blazing fire, frozen to the bone and with an incredulous Tina asking them _what_  on _earth_  they had been thinking, they _knew_  how competitive they both got practicing wandless magic and _knew_  each other well enough, by golly, to know what would happen if they challenged each other to a snow-fight _in their long underwear,_  no less! She couldn’t have her boss  _and_  his keeper with a cold at the same time, thank you, one was bad enough, and she wasn’t their nursemaid, you know!

  
Credence couldn’t bring himself to mind. The look on Percival’s face, pure, childish joy as he shared one of his favorite childhood memories, was worth the (frankly rather concerning, though the other two seemed unworried) numb in his fingertips. He did trust the man, after all, that this, too, would pass.

And the near-literal avalanche he’d managed to call down upon the man from within the safety of his own fort had been _worth it_.

  
There were worse ways to lose one’s fingers, after all. They would just have to warm each other up.

  
And tirade they were on the receiving end of when Tina came back, screeching, to an “eyeful she didn’t need to see of her boss, thank you kindly!” from the door of the room wasn’t even enough to bother them. They were too warm, melting together as one, to even care.


End file.
